


heavy conversations before 6am

by wwanderingproxy



Category: Welcome to Night Vale
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, Dialogue Heavy, Implied/Referenced Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, M/M, theyre not like at school tho just teenagers, trans mtf abby and trans ftm abby's boyfriend but its not rly mentioned
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-07
Updated: 2017-04-07
Packaged: 2018-10-15 23:43:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 925
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10559698
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wwanderingproxy/pseuds/wwanderingproxy
Summary: “I’m going to ask you a heavy question, one that you don’t have to answer if you don’t want to. Okay?”“...Okay.” Because he trusts Carlos. He does.(“don’t trust anyone.”)Cecil and Carlos have a talk.





	

**Author's Note:**

> i havent edited this at all, its literally 5am, i havent slept, and i wrote this instead of doing schoolwork.
> 
> have fun.

Cecil wakes up with a mild headache and in a room that is decidedly Not His. He sits up, groaning lightly, and spots his boyfriend from across the room, who has such a worried expression on his face that it physically hurts. Just past him, the clock read 5:33am, and isn't it a Wednesday? 

Carlos is clearly doing something- cooking, maybe?- but he comes and sits at the desk anyway, just a foot or so from the bed. Cecil, hating being talked down to, hauls himself up despite the head rush and seats himself across from him, nervous in the heavy atmosphere.

Carlos and him have a long second of silence between them, his perfect beautiful boyfriend staring off with a pensive expression on his face and absently brushing English homework to the side. “Cecil,” he says finally, trepidatious.

“Carlos,” he says in return, and it would be a lie to say he wasn’t suspicious, but Carlos just sighs.

“I’m going to ask you a heavy question, one that you don’t have to answer if you don’t want to. Okay?”

“...Okay.” Because he trusts Carlos. He does. _(“don’t trust anyone.”)_

“Does your mother hit you?”

Carlos winces, like he expects a bad reaction, but Cecil just deflates, gives up. There’s barely a second of silence before he says, “Yeah, sometimes,” not sure, even as he says it, how or why.

“That’s not okay, Cecil.”

“I know. I, uh... I owe you an explanation, don’t I?”

“You don’t owe me anything,” says Carlos, frowning.

“No, yeah, just.. I want to get it out in the- in the open.” Carlos nods, but Cecil hesitates anyway. “There’s- kind of a story? Do you..”

“I don’t mind. Say whatever you’re comfortable with, Cecil,” he says quietly, and Cecil heaves a sigh, folding his arms on the table and dropping his head into it.

“Uh. I guess I start at the beginning? We were, uh, a happy family, once. So Simon says. Simon’s my older brother, he’s-” he waves a hand dismissively- “not around anymore. Mom always struggled with her mental health, and had a little rough patch after every kid, but she was.. good, apparently. They- Dad, Mom, Abby, and Simon- they were a picture perfect family, you know? Well, if they were all white, straight, and cis,” he says, huffing a laugh. Carlos doesn’t find it funny.

“Then I came around,” Cecil continues. “Mom just... got worse and never recovered, I guess. Went on and off her meds. Started drinking again. Dad was really determined to have a happy family again though, he thought maybe another kid would magically make all the problems go away. Spoiler alert: It didn’t. I’m not even sure how they conceived her, considering Mom got all paranoid about being touched.. then again, with the man my father was...” He shakes his head. “Janice- Yeah, that Janice, I’ll get to that- was born when I was in fifth grade, and whatever hope there was for a happy family got crushed. Mom stopped being sober, like, ever, and was rarely even lucid anymore, just... off. In her own world. I dunno. The closest she’d ever come back to the real world was getting pissed off at us for whatever and trying to beat the evil out of us, or something? That’s all I ever picked up from her rambling. She was always paranoid, I guess it.. got to me a little, but. I dunno.”

“Did your father just.. allow that..?”

“He left.. six months after Janice was born, I think. Couldn’t handle it, or something. Simon left later too, two weeks before Janice’s second birthday. She kept... crying, asking after him, for months. It was terrible. Personally, I guess I didn’t miss him that much. He was my brother but Simon just, hated me. Blamed me for Mom’s problems. So did Dad, I think, but it was more of an implied thing with him, just how I could never make him happy with me, but Simon didn’t bother hiding it.”

“You- Cecil, you know that’s not your faul--”

“Please,” says Cecil, sounding just a little broken. Carlos shuts up. “Then, uh.. Abby- Abby went for legal guardianship of us the minute she turned 18. Won me, lost Janice. Her boyfriend, Stac- ...Tyylerr..? I wanna say Tyler, but I don’t know his new name for sure. But he’s Steve’s older brother, and he convinced his parents to take Janice in for a little while. They fell in love and adopted her, basically. They had to trick Mom into agreeing to it, but oh well. She’s happy now, I guess.” He sighs.

“Abby left when she finished senior year, disappeared with Tyler, I got dumped back on Mom. They were found enrolled in a college in one of those tiny states up north the following September. We haven’t talked.” Cecil knows exactly which state, which college, and what the name of her building is, but he doesn’t say any of that. If he pretends he doesn’t know, it’s an excuse not to contact her. “The Carlsbergs are..” his expression twists with contempt, but he just sighs again, drained. “They’re a good family. Steve is a good brother, does everything he can for her. Better than I could do.”

“Cecil I...” Carlos sighs. “Thank you for telling me. You can stay here again tonight, if you want. You don’t have to go home to her. You shouldn’t go home to her.”

Cecil shrugs, and stands up. “Maybe,” he says. “C’mon though, we’re going to miss the bus."

**Author's Note:**

> ugh


End file.
